Baby If I Tried All Night
by TheLongStreet
Summary: Wilson is getting mysterious phone calls.  Will the culprit come forward alone, or will the good oncologist have to put his heart on the line?  Chapterfic.
1. Chapter 1

Title: (Baby) If I Tried All Night

By: TheLongStreet

Disclaimer: Neither of these gentlemen belongs to me, but they may belong to each other. No copyright infringement is intended, but if Fox would like to take a few notes…

A/N- This is going to be a long one! Please comment if you can, to let me know if you like where the stories going, or if I get any details wrong, which I'm totally going to do. Enjoy  .

The phone rings when he is finally sleeping, after what seems like hours and hours spent watching pointless television alone, eating take out and frowning at the television set. It jars him awake, and Wilson spends a few moments in the dark groggily rubbing his eyes and wondering what's up. It's the hotel's phone, not his cell phone, that is ringing, its red light blinking on and off in the dim room, attempting to indicate a sense of urgency that he is just not feeling after 10 straight hours at the hospital, surrounded by dying children and the gloomy thought that he has nothing to come home to.

Did I ask the clerk for a wake up call, he wonders sleepily. But no, the clock loudly announces the time in green neon, three in the morning, no sane person could expect a wakeup call then, and he might not be entirely sane, but compared to his fellows, he has his feet firmly planted. And the clerks at this place are not exactly accommodating either. The hotel charges for any sort of extra phone services, even star sixty-nine, and to be honest Wilson doesn't really care to get up out of his warm, albeit bumpy, bed, and subject his bare feet to whatever germs the room's past residents have left behind. He doesn't care who it is, probably just some confused foreigner trying to reach a member of their absurdly extended family, and after six rings the room is silent again, so he rolls over and forgets all about it.

A few hours later he wakes to the yowling of the alarm clock and has time to wonder vaguely if it was all a dream before the two-year old staying with the family next door begins to scream, shattering his confused peace. Grimly, Wilson wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and decides that he likes children best when they are dying. He spends the next forty minutes trying to banish the thought while he showers, styles his hair, and uses his hair dryer on the loudest setting, trying not to imagine what House would say about his feeble attempts at retribution. 'Oh, the injustice,' he'd howl, and beg Wilson to stop, please stop, with all that horrible hair drying racket.

Actually, the noise of the hair dryer in the morning really did bother his cantankerous friend- Wilson knew very well from his last divorce, when he had slept over at House's for the better part of two months. House had such trouble sleeping as it was, Wilson had finally decided it was unfair to subject him to his noisy morning habits any longer, and had, one evening, abruptly packed his things, called this hotel, and moved out. All things considered, the bed is not much comfier than House's couch, the cable gets terrible reception, and the pillow isn't much for conversation, but at least, he reasons, as he tucks his card key neatly into his wallet, he has his privacy back, and no one is stealing his breakfasts.

This last statement isn't exactly true, either. Traffic is bad on the highway Wilson takes from the hotel, making him think longingly off the short commute from House's home to the hospital. Hell, his old house with Julie had been closer to the hospital than this. After thirty minutes of stomach churning red-light-green-light on the freeways he enters his office to find House already in it, his head firmly entrenched in the lower shelves of his refrigerator, his hands rooting wildly through Wilson's homemade treats. Politely directing his gaze to his best friend's rear, as it is the only part of him visible, and his mother has taught him to _always _make eye contact, he addresses the older man in a stern voice.

'You there, bum,' he says, smiling inwardly at his own double entendre, 'get your face out of my fridge, do you mind, that's my lunch you're holding!' He scowls as House turns around suddenly, blue Tupperware clasped firmly in one grubby paw, but the frown is insincere, and he can't sell it for long.

'You're later than me,' the other man observes calmly, closing the refrigerator door but making no attempt to return the Tupperware to its shelf, 'is this going to turn into a contest? Because you should know, there's no way you can beat me at this.'

'The late game?' he laughs lightly. 'No, I don't think so. I've already been fired once on account of you.' House raises his eyebrows but says nothing. He isn't guilty, Wilson knows, but he is sorry, he suspects, that it happened. House would happily have taken the punishment himself, he so enjoys suffering. Wilson snorts, and suddenly, there's a cane very close to his face, very quickly.

'What's up,' House asks, withdrawing the cane but eyeing him closely, 'there was a nasty look on your face right then. Thinking about Julie?' he suggests hopefully, his voice rising in amusement.

'I was thinking about you,' Wilson snaps, suddenly feeling tired. The puzzled look on his friend's face gives no clues into his own strange behavior, and at lunch, Wilson eats a cafeteria salad all alone in his office, wondering why his first thought, when the phone had rung was: this is House. He wonders why he thought that, why he didn't rush to the phone, as he normally would, why his pink blush burned warmly into his pillows in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Chapter two! Not much happens in this one, but I swear, a plot _is _coming (checks calendar guiltily). Yes.

Wilson is tired of take out. He is tired of cheeseburgers, fish fillets, greasy yellow fries and the stiff sound of crinkling paper as his latest missile misses its target, bouncing off the rim of the plastic hotel waste bin to join its fellows in a haggard ring around the seemingly ineffective trash receptacle. He is tired of living out of a suitcase, and he wants to go home.

One problem. He has no home to go to.

Quietly, Wilson slips into the bathroom and turns on the light. Slowly turning his head from side to side, he appraises his figure from all angles, carefully examining his features, the way the lines at the corners of his eyes seem to deepen the closer they get to the heart of his face, the way his mouth droops without him knowing when he is not consciously lifting the edges. The shadows gather surreptitiously in the hollows of his cheeks; he looks like a plague – as if malady, perhaps, or sorrow, escaped from Pandora's Box and played savage games across the landscape of his features.

House would tell him to stop being such a diva, but he would also tell him that he belonged on his couch, or at least in his kitchen, cooking him up exquisite concoctions at his every whim. Has told him this. This kind of smile, at least, reaches his eyes, reminds him that he is a human being, and worth loving, for all his faults and creases. He has been around a long time, after all, and is used to bending along the same lines. It is comfortable, and reassuring, but Wilson is not comforted, and his is not reassured, in all honesty, that he can take much more of this.

Shutting off the light, he closes the bathroom door behind him, exits slowly. He neatens his work clothes, smoothing their wrinkles and carefully draping them over the back of a chair before continuing on to restore the fast food wrappers to their allocated bin. He puts all his books back in the suitcase, wishing he'd borrowed a few from House when he'd left, since all these are familiar, this situation is familiar, this sadness is familiar and he'll just have to wait it out.

Tonight, instead of a two year old, the room next door is holding lovers. In their merriment they defy each and every structure on earth that seeks to confine them, a sentiment Wilson might appreciate the poetry in but little else. I am not a peeping tom, he thinks shamefully, I mean, I can't see anything, thank _god_, but…the sound of love is less dense than water, it is thinner than skin, stronger than bone. It cannot be kept out, not even by a down comforter and a heart of stone.

At three o clock, like every night this week, the phone rings, and Wilson does not rise to answer it. Alone in his bed he wonders why it is so nice to know that some things in his life have not changed, that some slim finger in the night continually puts to rest the silence of his slumber, driven, he dreamily imagines, by a need to connect, to connect with Wilson, with he who is lonesome, and in need of a friend.

Next door the lovers drift in a blissful doze. He wants to be with someone. He wonders how House can stand it. He is tired of being alone.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Yay, a longer chapter! Actually, I really like this chapter (conceited much, eh?) so I hope you enjoy it. Sorry there's not much plot in this one…I don't believe in plot really. I just believe in me (hoho). All your comments are really appreciated, and totally cheering. OK, shutting up now.

By midday Wilson senses that the jig is up. It's been a long, tiring work week, empty of human company besides that of his colleagues and patients, which doesn't lend itself to light conversation. For this week, the interminable five days which seem, each progressing slower and slower, leaking color as they go, Wilson has not spoken to a woman, young or old, buxom or slim, outgoing or reserved, with any intent other than a purely professional interest (and not a professional interest in her breasts, although Wilson is sure he is qualified).

The nurses, who do not understand him, think he is pausing to 'mourn' so to speak, the untimely demise of his marital relationship. House would say he is taking a break between divorces. House understands Wilson but this time he would be wrong; this is not a break, it is cessation. Complete and utter.

Wilson figures he has found no happiness in women that has ever lasted. Not that he believes in ever-lasting happiness- he's an oncologist, for heaven's sake, he knows better than that, but truly he doesn't believe he deserves to be miserable and alone.

Well, you're miserably alone, a voice in his head informs him irritably, but House interrupts by bursting through his office door and fixing him with a gaze that could drive a stake through a vampire's heart.

Wilson's heart is up to something funny as well, it's sending too much blood to his face than is really warranted by the appearance of his best friend, but as a doctor Wilson is well aware that the body is wont to do what it pleases.

'Do you have ED?' House blurts rudely, narrowing his blue gaze to a fine point, fixed just above Wilson's nose, burning straight into his own brown eyes, hedged so embarrassingly with those thick lashes the women seemed to love. House doesn't seem to be affected.

'W-what?' Wilson stutters, taken aback by the intensity of his friend's tone. House didn't worry, not about others, only about himself, so what was that strange depth in his voice that made him sound almost as if he wanted to cry?

'Is your toothpick working?' he asks crassly.

'Yes!' Wilson is redder than a tomato now. He wants to crawl into a hole (preferably in a vegetable garden) and die. He knew he would have to tell House eventually.

'Then what's the matter? Women lose their appeal?' He sneers a bit unkindly. 'I guess Julie ruined another thing for you, huh?'

Wilson wants to make that sound go away. He doesn't know why House is so angry, so…upset.

'Quiet Greg,' he jokes lightly. 'You're just jealous you're not getting any.'

When House doesn't respond, Wilson examines his face while studiously attempting to appear to be studying the carpet. There are hollows under House's eyes that a man could drown himself in. The texture of his skin is bluish as it approaches his chin, where stubble stands out, a paradox of rough tips and smooth sensations. His eyes are yellow with exhaustion.

He doesn't seem to be answering, or in the joking mood, for that matter, and he certainly isn't kidding around with the sharp point of is cane, so Wilson decides to shoot for the truth. If neither of them are sleeping…he wonders if they dream about the same thing. That would make it easier; it would be as if they were together, a set, two men who think they have nothing.

'I'm thinking about giving up on women for a while.' It's impossible to lie to House, so he'll recognize this for the truth. House's sharp bite of laughter is a bit of a surprise. It is a lancing flash of light in the dim office.

Too bad he's making fun of me, Wilson thinks sarcastically.

'Do you believe in miracles, James Wilson?' House's voice is incredulous. 'I didn't take you for a religious man. Are you going to take me to see Jesus?'

Wilson glares. 'Just because _you_ prefer hookers to emotional attachment doesn't make _me _a joke!' He hisses. 'I'm serious!'

'Me too.' The blue note is back in his baritone. 'Have you seen Him around anywhere?' He peers over Wilson's shoulder in a weak attempt at humor. As if God were hiding, unnoticed, beneath Wilson's scrupulous desk, bony knees folded at an uncomfortable angle, cheeks flushed from the close air and subsequent eavesdropping. 'He's the miracle man, after all,' the words are laced bitterly with self-derision; 'I thought he could teach me how to make you happy.'

Wilson's eyes are glued to the carpet as House executes an ungainly, rushed exit. Spurred into motion by the tap of his friend's cane on the tiled floors he races to the doorway and leans out, feeling his chest's contractions press against the immobility of the wooden wall, and shouts 'I'm not unhappy!' But the words ring hollow and untrue.

Later, on his way back to the hotel, he pulls his car over and sobs into his shirtsleeve until he can see again. Every rev of a motorcycle makes his heart turn over in its cage.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: OK, so this part is kind of weird…but so am I so I guess that makes sense. I didn't know the names of Wilson's brothers? So I made them up. If you know, please tell me, but I probably won't fix anything since I haven't figured out how to edit stuff on this site…enjoy and let me know what you think, pretty please! Thanks to everyone who's commented so far.

Wilson is having a nightmare. It doesn't start like one. He's dreaming of his childhood, of his two brothers, two, not one, which is how he knows it is just a dream, and an old dream for all that. He's had it a thousand times before, whenever he is feeling lonely. He dreamed this dream in college, in med school, in his first  
apartment, a grungy empty building with bugs of which he was nevertheless proud. To date, he's dreamt this dream with three different wives, any number of strange women, and, most frequently, he's dreamt it alone, thin and shivering between cold sheets and countless hotels as faceless as their occupants.

They are playing ball, soccer, it seems, Robert, Jimmy, and Tom, in descending age, Tom, who's face Wilson can picture at the ages of ten, twenty, and thirty, because he's seen it, and Robert, whom Wilson can only imagine. Never imagines. It is better to let things be, to not pretend that you think they can be alright, when you can't even find a woman you won't cheat on, when all you can do is send away the people you love, one by one, with your own selfishness, because you don't deserve them. 

This is how he knows it is a nightmare. When he is waking, he knows that some of these are lies. Not everything you hear out there is true, his mother always said, but what about in here, eight year old Jimmy wonders. In a dream, everything is true, and nothing is true. And someone out there said that, so he can't even trust it, but Jimmy does. He's never listened to his mother.

It's summer and the three of them are playing soccer in the field behind their house. It backs up on the elementary school, so they've got all this space. Once you get past the gate your parents can hardly see you, except to watch for movement so they know you're there, and not leaving town like you are always planning when you are eight.  
When you get older they stop looking, that's how Robert escaped.

Wilson can feel the blistering sun on his face, he loves the summer, he's forgotten, he doesn't spend much time outdoors anymore, he exercises at the gym, hides his face; he's like a vampire, living on the blood of others, or at least, surviving on their deaths. Somewhere in his adult head there is a doubt, which is burned away.

Someone hits him on the head with a soccer ball, he tumbles down into the green grass, grinning. There is dirt on his nose, his knees; the palms of his hands are smeared with yellowish stains from sliding to stop a goal. Tom's goal, probably, because Robert's shots always go over his head, quick, neat kicks to the upper right corner. They always go in, Jimmy never even jumps for them, it's a foregone conclusion. Tom isn't very good at soccer, but he's a good sport. It's Robert who's skipped the ball at his head.

Jimmy can hear his brothers laughing, his eyes are full of the blue sky above him, it's always this way in the field- there are no trees, no buildings to place the view, the sky eats everything and becomes everything. Jimmy wonders what it's like to be eaten by a giant beast. The clouds could be the teeth. He knows what's in the throat, what's in the stomach, how it would be done. He wonders how it would feel.

'Hey Jimmy, what's the matter! Are you staring at the clouds like a girl?' A rush of boyish indignation tingles in his nerves. 'You find any hearts up there, you sissy!' Hush, Robert, can't you see I'm having an epiphany?

Children always ignore the voices of grown ups.   
Jimmy grabs the ball and leaps to his feet, cheeks blazing as he prepares to defend his honor. His face is sweaty, everything sticks, his jumper, his socks, he can't get the sky out of his head. Wilson feels the breeze on his face as he pulls back a thin leg for the kick, shoots the ball towards his older brother, feeling that it will not stop, that it will whiz by and continue rolling through the perfect green endlessness of the field. His brothers are laughing, Robert shouting 'Missed me missed me now you've got to kiss me!' and tackles him, they fall down, wrestling in the grass. Jimmy struggling, knowing he's going to get a Wet Willy, anticipating the slimy feeling of sudden cold in his ear, he squirms, feeling an unexpected snow harden and mold beneath his body, braces himself for it but there's a tongue in his mouth and rough stubble against his cheek and suddenly something else blue is between him and the sky and he can't stand it he's so scared and suddenly there's lightning and he's up from underneath his brother/assailant. He throws a snowball it becomes a bullet it hits Robert in the thigh

don't hate me don't hate me an accident I just want to be loved 

Someone else's blood fills his mouth and he somehow he chokes out a scream loud enough to wake the dead.

Cuddy is standing in the doorway when he lifts his head from his desk, chest heaving. 'Wilson, are you all right?' she asks, her arms crossed beneath her breasts in a matronly way. 'House called me from his office and said you were twitching on your desk, said his leg hurt too much to go to you himself.' Coward, Wilson thinks, an absurd  
fear twisting in his chest, he's avoiding you, he doesn't want to explain himself, he's so selfish sometimes.

'Just a dream,' Wilson shrugs, consciously relaxing the muscles in his face, directing his gaze away from Cuddy's breasts, an old reflex, he can never help himself. 'I wrestled in college.' He puts on a false grin, knowing she'll fall for it, just like the kids do. She'll want to believe it, because grown men don't have nightmares, they have wet dreams, or they have no dreams. That's the way the world works. Women dream about their weddings, he read that somewhere, he's too smart to believe it but something rings true.

He can still feel House's hot tongue against his cheek. He supposes he's no exception.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: OK, tried to make this chapter a leetle more normal than the last one, alright? I think maybe House is a little OOC here, but sue me (wait, don't! I put a disclaimer, 'member?). It's a little short; I'll try to update soon. Once again, thanks for commenting, and also for reading: I hope everyone is having fun (except for Wilson, of course. I live to make him suffer).

When Cuddy leaves Wilson ambles over to House's office, denying the weakness in his knees. He does not believe in knocking, not with House, who would just as soon break into your office than wait for you to answer the door. Accordingly, Wilson flings the door wide before him, anticipating House's malevolent face, or something, any indicator that he's been had in some sort of joke, which is generally, with these two, the correct conclusion to come to.

As a matter of fact, House looks tired. His face is carefully neutral, of course, because who knows why Wilson is here, but his posture is relevant. It leaks news of his exhaustion by way of rounded shoulders, a bent back, and drooping head. House's gaze is lively enough, however. Not depression, Wilson hopes.

'That was some dream I was having,' Wilson begins carefully. 'Thanks for sending Cuddy in to wake me, you lazy, self-indulgent ass! Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up to your boss's face in the middle of the work shift? Are you _trying _to get me fired?'

'Of course not.' There's the evil grin. 'If you got fired, who would I pick on? Chase? I'm already tired of making him cry. But you see, I was just so comfortable in this armchair…'

'Liar. You really can't get up.' House's grin never falters.

'True. Jimmy, carry me!' Wilson feels a smile crack the corners of his mouth when his friend takes on that tone. 

'Shut up you great oaf. Did you stay up too late watching bad television with your hookers? I know how they wear you out.'

'No,' House shrugs, apparently unconcerned. 'I've just been waking up tired lately. My leg, especially. Maybe it was that fat hooker I had last week…oh wait. That was your wife!'

Wilson's pretty sure it's too soon after the divorce to think that's funny, but he laughs anyway. House is in a good mood, better than he's been in a long time.

'You're chatty,' he observes. 'Happy to see me?'

'Well yeah, Jimbo. The way you were flopping around on your desk back there, I thought you were having a seizure!' Twinkling blue eyes meet his for an instant and Wilson feels his tongue swell. He has to clench his lips to keep everything from spilling out onto the conference desk between them, glittering like jewels in a magpie's nest, or the secret confessions on a Jerry Springer show.

'Just a dream.' Wilson shrugs again. There's no way he's explaining this to House.

'About Robert?' Damn him.

'No, about me.'

'Was Julie the villain?' Usually a surefire way to make Wilson smile.

'No, I was.'

'The victim and the villain in your own nightmare?' House raises one eyebrow gracefully in disbelief.

'I never said I was the victim!' Wilson cries indignantly, feeling his cheeks flush.

'You were thrashing like you were. Unless you're actually a flounder.' He widens his eyes and appraises his best friend carefully, as if checking for fins causing strange mountains in the stiff fabric of his work shirt. Wilson gazes at the floor, embarrassed. He wishes House would stop looking at him so that he could stare instead.

'Do you know what else is a nightmare?'

'What?' Wilson grasps at the new conversation strain, eagerly anticipating another I-caught-Cameron-and-Chase-getting-it-on-in-the-staffroom spiel, but he should have known better than to try and anticipate House's comments. There was nothing House hated more in the world than boring, predictable people. He would die if he thought he'd become one.

'Your tie.'

'What!?' He loves this tie. 'What's wrong with this tie?'

'Everything,' House answers smugly.

Suddenly, Wilson can't take it any longer. He bursts out laughing, feeling tears well up in the corners of his eyes, lines of stress loosening in his face. 'That's what she said!' he gasps between guffaws, helplessly collapsing onto a chair beside his best friend.

His best friend who is looking at him like he is crazy.

'Who said?' he asks suspiciously. 'I thought you were done with girls.'

'I am! It's just an expression!' It's hard for Wilson to breathe, let alone speak. He wishes he could take a picture of House's face. 'You look like a codfish!' He dissolves into peals of laughter.

House rolls his eyes, but he's trying to hide a smile. He reaches up and gruffly wipes Wilson's hair off his forehead before heaving himself out of his chair with an almost tangible effort, fumbling with his cane and limping for the door like a grumpy grisly bear.

'Stop talking like a teenager,' he chides gently, and closes the door on his prostrate friend, quietly congratulating himself on a job well done.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Hello everybody! Am I the only one that hates/sucks at writing dialogues? I mean, what's that? Speak up House, dear. Err, yeah…the chapter after this is going to be the last, I think, so that makes this the penultimate! As such, this one is for the gal who loves that word so much . Thanks for commenting and again, enjoy!

When it comes, Wilson has to admit he is completely unprepared. When you live in a hotel, nothing you do matters. It is just the kind of anonymity that he craves when he is hurting, it is the sort of thing you come to rely on. A basic truth, like the universal laws of physics, or Newton's theory on gravity. It's like damage control. A weight he can feel lifts off his shoulders when he sinks into the unfamiliar mattress for the first time, each time; see, nothing I do here can hurt anybody.

Is that why he left House? Wilson recalls that at the time, it was he who was hurting. Did running away make anything better? Of course not. Ignoring cancer does not put you into remission, he reminds himself sternly, and now he has no choice but to go back, to turn and fight this disease, this crippling cowardliness, this emotional deficiency.

And no, he is not going back to Julie.

With some dismay he eyes the desk clerk, squinting his brown eyes as if his visual focus is going to have some effect on the words coming out of this pimply kid's mouth.

'I-I'm _what? _Kicked out? What for?' He opens and shuts his mouth several times, trying to kick start his brain. Come on, you're a doctor, you're supposed to be smart! No good. It's been a long day at the hospital. A traffic jam on 91 made him late for an appointment, an old patient came back after 6 years in remission, and House limped in at 10:30 looking as if he were ninety years old. Wilson has also noticed, disturbingly, that the nurses in accounting don't even interest him anymore. Even more disturbing, he finds he doesn't mind.

'It's the phone calls.'

'What?' Wilson's brain stutters back into the conversation. 'I hardly ever use the phone.'

'Not _out_going calls,' the kid mutters. Wilson quashes an evil urge to offer the kid a prescription for acne cream. '_In_coming calls.' Ah.

'We've had several complaints from other customers about a phone ringing at three thirty in the morning. Every morning. For the past month.'

'Oh.'

'Duh' Wilson counts to ten and reminds himself that teenager's brains aren't fully developed. Hardly developed at all, actually. And wait, since when were we assuming that teenagers even had brains?

'So, I'm out?'

'Unless you want to unplug your phone?'

'No.' No, that isn't what he wants. Somewhere in his stomach Wilson can feel a rotten feeling stirring. If he could have just one more night, he would pick up the phone, he would speak into the receiver, ask who was calling, thank them for making his nights just that much less lonely. He would ask them out to coffee, tell them they may have saved his life. He wonders if that's true. He wonders what's wrong with House. He wonders what to do next. Finally, he decides to go home.

It takes Wilson under fifteen minutes to pack his things and tidy up, frowning at the mountain of fast food wrappers that have accumulated in the wastebasket. He doesn't remember eating that much junk, but he must have. I'm getting more and more like House each day, he thinks, and fights to swallow the rising panic that the image of his friend's pale face conjures up. Then, after checking the bathroom and closet twice, he dons his jacket and eases out the door for the last time, but not after placing his lips to the receiver just once, allowing himself to slip dreamily in and out between static snarls to find his calm center in the silence on the other end.

At nine thirty he's knocking on House's door. There's a flutter in his chest that he doesn't understand, he feels like a junior high-schooler, when everything his body and mind did was a mystery. He feels his face getting hot when he thinks of his dream, and he knows this feeling is just the same. He scuffs his feet nervously and wonders foolishly if he should have called first, or something. For all he knows, it really is the hookers that are making House look so blue.

Like always, the first glimpse of his friend takes his breath away momentarily. The clear eyes, the strong, sad mouth, his quiet, crooked demeanor. Wilson couldn't begin to explain how it feels to know you are the only person who understands the wonderful, complex puzzle that is Gregory House, MD. It literally leaves him breathless. It makes him weak.

'Girlfriend kick you out?' A familiarly curmudgeonous voice asks from the door. Wilson feels the corners of his mouth lift in an echo of his friend's.

'I told you, there's no girlfriend.'

'Did you get lonely? Can't satisfy your own needs?' Raised brows tease him in a tone that drags chills across his spine.

'Y-yeah, lonely for my bitch.' His breath hitches when House laughs. It's been too long since he's heard that. He can't even believe he's just said that.

'I-I mean…can I come in? They've kicked me out of the hotel, I'm so surprised I don't know what to do, you were right I never should have left I just don't want to spend another night alone waiting for the phone to ring.'

In the silence that follows Wilson can hear the analytic wheels in his best friend's brain spinning wildly. He knows those words were just an accident. They are a violation of their friendship, these traitorous words. He's James Wilson. When he's unhappy, he sleeps with someone. He loves to be in love. He doesn't admit when he's lonely, and House never asks.

'Depends. You gonna make your bitch dinner?'

'It's after nine. You haven't eaten yet?'

'I can't eat without my honey.' Wilson can't remember the last time he felt this good, this optimistic about anything he's done. He's afraid to smile, afraid that if he opens his mouth this incredible feeling is going to rush out and frighten House away. He follows him silently into the apartment, quietly glowing.

They watch television until midnight, mindless of the passing hours. Nevertheless, every other commercial break or so, Wilson shoots a cautious look at his friend, waiting for the eyelids to droop, for his apparent exhaustion to force the night to end. At twelve House drags himself p from his chair and walks slowly to the bedroom, without comment. At the door he spins and faces Wilson, tiredness exposing the vulnerability that his aloof demeanor is designed to hide. 'You know where the blankets are. And the couch. Oh, and don't hesitate to use the bathroom, you know, mi casa et su casa! We don't want another incident like last time.'

'That _incident_ was yourfault! '

'Oh, is little Jimmy embarrassed by his accident?'

'I did _not _have an accident! You put my fingers in water while I was sleeping!'

'Would you rather I did something else while you were sleeping?'

'What? N-no.' Suddenly their lively banter screeches to a halt. Wilson feels his face start to burn again, his heartbeat gallops in his chest. He speaks quickly, desperate to draw House's puzzles gaze from his cheeks. 'Y-you're the one who hasn't slept in weeks!'

'I'm sleeping,' he grumbles darkly, 'it's just not doing me any good. Maybe I should pull a Jimmy, whore myself out to the records department so I don't get too lonely in my big cold bed.' Wilson feels the room shrink, senses the piano disappearing, and the DVD, the television set, until they are alone in a universe without the toys and distractions which allow grown men to exist years within the same sphere without ever touching.

'T-that's not why,' Wilson stammers weakly. 'I'm not alone, I- I have lots of people, my parents, Cuddy a-and my brother and-'

'Me.'

Wilson leans back again the couch cushions and scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms, listening to the angry clatter of House's cane diminish with distance. He follows the sound through the hallways, aware of the thousands of times he's mapped this journey in the night, from this couch, from Julie's bed, and Shannon's, through the long twisting wires of the telephone, straight into House's heart.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: OK, the end of the line. This one's for Claire, since I wrote it for her anyway :D . I hope everyone likes it…thanks to everyone who read, favorited, alerted or _commented_; your notices really helped…especially mikesh: thanks for commenting every time! That really made me smile. Please let me know what you think! Adieu!

Wilson finds it's twice as easy to feel lonely when people won't leave you alone. As a department head his job usually runs pretty autonomously. That doesn't mean that he never sees anyone else- of course, he's quite involved with most of his staff, and he's been slightly more than involved with several of the stationed nurses, but he takes pride in being generally self-sufficient. So when Cuddy passes his office for the fourth time at nine thirty, he surmises that something is up.

Rather wishing he had House's particular skills in interrogation, Wilson steels himself with a skirt-chasing smile and gestures with one hand to his boss, eying her guilty face with blatant curiosity.

'Good morning, Lisa,' he says in a friendly tone, trying to subtly appease her conscience, figuring she's much more likely to spill when she thinks he's not going to get angry. Not that he ever gets angry, really, unless it's about House. 'Can I help you with something?'

'I-,' she clears her throat anxiously and twists her hands in front of her scarlet crinoline skirt. 'I heard you've moved back in with House. He said you got kicked out of your hotel?' The confusion on her face is evident, but it doesn't explain the guilt. Wilson knows what would explain the guilt, however. Complicity. He feels a nervous dread settle heavily into his chest and his palms immediately begin to sweat.

'What else did House tell you,' he asks suspiciously, wondering what House could possibly know that would make Cuddy so uncomfortable after all their years of friendship. He feels distinctly warm in beneath the collar. He is not in trouble, he reminds himself desperately. He hasn't done anything wrong (recently, and that he can think of). He doesn't have any secrets that Cuddy needs to know about. He has a challenging job, a decent car, and dashing good looks…he has a missing brother. He has a headache. Not to mention he happens to be harboring a massively problematic (and puzzlingly homoerotic) crush on his best friend. But House can't possibly have told Cuddy all that.

Wilson closes his eyes, trying to imagine what life would be like as someone else, maybe someone whose patients actually live sometimes. Maybe someone who isn't such a fuck up. But Wilson's a doctor, not a philosopher, ergo no one honestly cares what he's thinking, so maybe he should just stop.

'He just mentioned something about a telephone, that's all. You said something about phone calls? I thought maybe you were being harassed by the family of a … deceased patient or something. Just thought I'd check in.'

Poor woman, Wilson thinks sympathetically. She probably figures she's going to hell for telling so many lies to an employee.

'Harassment? That's more of House's forte, isn't it? It's nothing like that. Someone's been calling late at night, is all. The management didn't like it.'

He's definitely going to hell for this. Somehow, he finds, it's possible to lie while telling the straight truth. Too straight, he guesses, to fit this situation entirely properly.

'It doesn't bother me,' he admits slowly, feeling his cheeks color. 'It makes me feel like- like some one is still there for me. Even though Julie isn't.'

Wilson leans back in his chair, silently wishing for an escape. Still, some boyish part of him is squirms with delight, knowing he's made her sorry that she's asked.

'I told you,' House murmurs sardonically from the doorway. He's leaning on his cane, looking tired but strangely satisfied. Cuddy raises a cross eyebrow and jumps up, indicating to House that the chair opposite Wilson is free, as he undoubtedly intended. He limps forward, face haggard and eyes bright.

'Hi, sleeping beauty,' House says casually, lowering himself down into the padded chair with obvious relief. He sounds nonchalant but something in the tightness around his mouth makes Wilson's throat clamp, and his heart flutters anxiously in his chest. He fights an absurd desire to smooth his hair in the bathroom mirrors.

'It was you?' A feeling of suspended disbelief allows him to choke the words out without stuttering.

'Sure thing, Jimbo,' House grins wickedly.

'Y-you're the one who's been calling at night?'

'Did you give anyone else your hotel number?' Jealousy, barely contained, gives the words a strangely ominous tone. Wilson feels cold panic in his bones.

'I'm the reason you look like shit?'

'What?' Cuddy stops suddenly in the doorway, her dark eyes quickly reevaluating the situation.

'That's my fault too?' Unbidden, House's gaunt face floats, detached, in front of Wilson's eyelids, pale and ethereal in a ghostly light. He feels like crying. He feels betrayed.

'What's your fault, Jimmy?' Confusion and hurt can't diminish the breathless charm of House's enchanting orbs.

'Shit!' Wilson curses angrily under his breath, rising from his chair in a fluid motion before either of them can anticipate it. He's pushing past Cuddy, out the door, down the hallway before either of them can respond, but there's the stamp of wood on tile and House's voice, rough and scared, shouting at him from the end of the hallway, 'James!' in a way that makes Wilson's vision fade.

Out on the streets, Wilson shakes his head to clear his foggy thoughts, quietly delighted as night blossoms over the city; neon signs unfurling delicately, giving off a shimmering heat that enchants him. He exhales sadness and betrayal into the atmosphere, redrawing fresh calm mouthfuls of fragrant city air, tasting soot and sweat and romance, the trifectum with which all cities are shaped.

With slow, measured steps, Wilson makes his way to a bus stop and sits, closing his eyes, feeling the heated glow of his cell phone pressing against his leg through his pants pocket. He closes his eyes and waits for it to ring, waits to wake up, hating this emptiness that consumes him in such private ways, on public streets. At least no one can see his tie in this lively dark. He stretches his long legs out across the sidewalk, daring each passerby to impinge on his silent vigil.

The call, when it comes, feels like 50 CC's of epinephrine straight to the gut. He smiles into the familiar silence on the other end, recognizing the cadent breathing with a jolt that forces his whole body to tingle in expectation, filling the moment with sensations to be catalogued, sorted, and examined later in a stronger, less tremulous atmosphere of two.

'House?'

'…I love you.'

'Well, why didn't you just say so?'

'Baby, I tried all night, but it rang and rang…'

Now they're both smiling. 'Come pick me up. I'm at the corner of seventh and Nines.' Wilson has never heard static as wolfish as his.

'Hop on!' He steps up behind this tender, gruff obsession, sliding his arms around House's waist in a possessive gesture that comes as naturally as breathing.

'Let's go to my place and make out,' House suggests, 'afterwards I'll write you a love poem.' Wilson guffaws.

'Wilson and sex don't rhyme, House.'

'No, but Jimmy and shimmy do.' He reaches down and squeezes Wilson's hands once with his own, releases one trembling breath from its tomb.

Beneath them, the bike shudders into life as if waking from a long and dreamless sleep. They peel out from the curb, tires squealing in exultation. Wilson knows that sound. It is a roar of victory.


End file.
